Sahara Sands - A Memoir

The coming of age process can be an interesting, daring, scary, and wonderful experience. It can be enriched by exposure to things never seen, never done or never even imagined. Parents, high school, college and then what? This Memoir is the 'then what'. ‘Sahara Sands’ takes place during 1958 to 1962 – a brief four-year period in which the author transitioned from a naive college kid to a proven self-dependent adventurer. The story begins with his first serious job as a photo analyst on the Polaris Missile testing in Washington D.C. and moves rapidly on to aerial geophysical survey work in North Africa and an oceanography survey in the Persian Gulf. Those relatively peaceful years contrast sharply with the Moslem chaos and tragedies of the same areas today. The observations and experiences are related throughout the author's travels including a few brief love affairs, and what may be the only practical history of how aerial surveys were conducted prior to satellite and digital technology. The Los Angeles company, Fairchild Aerial Surveys and other aerial pioneers, essentially first mapped the world. Please join the author in those times and adventures.

Come travel 'over-seas' with a young man straight out of college to a time between wars. Visit the countries of England, Sicily, Morocco, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iran through the first person learning experiences of a neophyte geologist during the boom years of oil discovery. Learn about a peaceful period of Italian occupied Libya that became a temporary 'home' to the author, and fly with him on aerial surveys over 'Sahara Sands'.

Dan Feltham is retired and living the quiet life in Southern California with his loving wife. Together, they have three sons. Dan is a graduate Geologist from Stanford University. After working several years in North Africa in exploration he switched disciplines and pursued an extensive career with the IBM Corporation, including several years each in Hawaii, Southeast Asia, the Marshall Islands, Saudi Arabia and Long Beach, CA. He has enjoyed international travel as well as owned and raced sailboats most of his life. He is the author of six e-Pub novels, Tradewinds Calling, The Catalina Connection, Mount Rushmore’s Legacy, The Edge of Time, the San Diego County award winner Terror in the Gulf and his latest romance/adventure novel, Mexican Standoff. As background material for sailing episodes within his books, Dan can refer to multiple bareboat cruising charters in the Caribbean, Tahiti and Fiji waters and fifty years of enthusiastic racing in Hawaii and Southern California. Dan recently self published a non-fiction account of his personal Vietnam war experiences entitled, When Big Blue Went To War, the History of the IBM Corporation’s Mission in Southeast Asia During the Vietnam War. The book has been praised by many as a one of a kind look at war from the civilian contractor’s different point of view. Dan can be reached via e-mail at danfeltham77@gmail.com, and/or his web pages - www.dansstories.com.